Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The real world is much smaller than the imaginary

The way you see life will largely determine what you get out of it.

Fantasy is escapism, but wait... Why is this wrong? What are you escaping from, and where are you escaping to? Is the story opening windows or slamming doors? The British author G.K. Chesterton summarized the role of fantasy very well. He said its purpose was to take the everyday, commonplace world and lift it up and turn it around and show it to us from a different perspective, so that once again we see it for the first time and realize how marvelous it is. Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that make us human.

What you see determines how you interpret the world, which in turn influences what you expect of the world and how you expect the story of your life to unfold.

What you have carried in your mind about the world is what you will see around the world. What you carry in your mind about your life is what you will see in your life.

Long ago, I became more interested in the real world than in make-believe.

The escape to an unchallenging fairy tale can be very nice and I'm all for that, but film can also challenge you to confront the realities of our world.

A reflection of an exact image is the closest thing to you-so that you can see it-but it's far enough away so that you really understand it. There is real life in this movie, but it hovers just an inch above reality.

When I was a kid, we actually lived in a house that had been divided in two at one point, which meant that one room in our house opened up onto a brick wall. And I was convinced all I had to do was just open it the right way and it wouldn't be a brick wall. So I'd sidle over to the door and I'd pull it open.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.

I will always have a soft spot for 'East of the Sun, West of the Moon,' which I discovered just at the age when I was beginning to enjoy the darkness in fairy tales but still wanted a story where the good guys win.

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.

Movies are different from real life.

Well, sanity, I suppose, is getting people to see the world your way.

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

I feel like my imagination was crafted by Tolkien. He seemed to tap into that childhood intrigue of secret doors and hidden worlds.

If you pay attention to the world, it's an amazing place. If you don't, it's whatever you think it is.

Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

When we were kids, I know when I saw 'Pinocchio' it had a huge impact. I was ten years old, and I went home, and I was drawing the characters.

The world begins with what we believe.

Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world.

[The child] takes his play very seriously and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real.